The Faithful Heart by Merry Farmer Read Free Book Online Page A

in front of him. He took a
deep breath and pushed his thoughts, and a few other things, down.
“Where are you headed?” He switched to a pure, neighborly tone,
reaching for the reins of the woman’s horse.
    “To Derby,” she answered.
    “Oy! Lucky for you, that’s where I’m goin’
too.” It was close enough to the truth. There was no way he would
find Ethan now. He walked the woman’s horse up to his own mount and
looked for a way to tie the reins to his saddle. “How’d you end up
all stranded out here all by yourself with a lame horse?”
    “I was attacked by a band of outlaws at first
light,” the woman sighed, her perfect chest heaving as she
shuddered.
    “Ethan,” Jack growled, almost missing the
intoxicating swell. Almost.
    “Who?” The woman batted her eyelashes at him
as he jerked the knot in the reins tight.
    “The folks that attacked you on the road. Was
there a man named Ethan with them? Or Toby or Tom or Roderick?”
    “I… I don’t know.” Her eyelids fluttered and
her cheeks flushed. “They didn’t give their names. They didn’t give
anything. They just took.”
    “Yeah?” Jack scowled. “What’d they take?”
    “Everything.” She looked up, eye glittering
with that light that made his chausses feel tight again.
“Everything,” she repeated with significance, resting a hand
between the cleft of her round breasts.
    Hail Madeline, full of grace…. He turned away
from her to mount his horse. “Yeah, we got a bit of an outlaw
problem in the forest at the moment.”
    “We?” She blinked and took his arm when he
reached down for her.
    “Yeah.” He grunted as he lifted her onto the
saddle in back of him. She ground her hips against him as she
settled. “Me and Crispin,” he croaked. He nudged his horse to turn,
the gray following, and started a swift walk back along the road to
Derby. The woman’s arms snaked around his waist.
    “You and…,” the woman faltered. “No! You’re
not … Are you Lord John of Kedleridge?”
    Jack twisted in his saddle to look over his
shoulder at her. “You heard of me then?”
    For a moment she looked as though she’d
swallowed a silver farthing. “You’re really Lord John of
Kedleridge?”
    “Yeah, I am,” he laughed. “Oy, I see my
reputation has preceded me.”
    “Well, it’s just that-” She stopped. Jack
twisted around to see her staring at his back. Her mouth was half
open in surprise and a twinkle that would have given him the
willies if she hadn’t been such a looker lit her eyes. “I’ve always
been lucky,” she started up again, laughing, “but this, well, this
is extraordinary!”
    “Oh yeah?” He shifted to look forward,
fiddling with the rosary and wishing they could get out of the
forest a little quicker.
    “I was just on my way to Derby to find
you.”
    “You were?” A tingle shot down his spine, but
whether it was from her revelation or the way she reached her hands
up to grasp his chest and squeeze him tighter he couldn’t tell.
    “Yes. My lord,” she added the last in a low
purr.
    “Why?” He squirmed in his saddle. Hail
Madeline, full of grace, blessed art thou among women….
    “My sister married a Kedleridge man, my lord.
When I heard that the old lord had died and that a new one had been
appointed in his place, well, I just had to come see for
myself.”
    “Oy, there ain’t much to see, mate,” he
chuckled, wondering why Simon had chosen such a hot tunic for him
to wear.
    “Oh, I beg to differ,” she hummed in a voice
so low Jack wasn’t sure if he was supposed to hear it or not.
    The road out of Derbywood had never seemed
longer or more enclosed as they made their way out of the forest.
Only this time it wasn’t the trees that unnerved Jack. Hail
Madeline, full of grace, he kept repeating as the woman pressed her
chest against his back and his mind counted the days since he’d
last had a woman in his bed. He could stop before they were out of
the woods for a quick tumble in the bushes.